President Obama is a failure as a Socialist

Right-wingers never tire of calling President Obama a socialist, when it doesn't suit their purpose better to call him a fascist, or a Muslim, and a Kenyan . . . or a monkey.

Well, the numbers are in, and the president flunks Socialism 101.

In March, 192,000 jobs were added to the economy.    But every bit of that growth was in the private sector.   In fact employment in private businesses  -- yes, the marketplace, so beloved by the right -- has returned to pre-recession levels of 2008.

At the same time, employment in the public sector of federal, state, and local governments continues to decline well below pre-2008 levels.   There was no job gain at all in the public sector in March.

In socialism, it would be the other way around.   But because of austerity cuts in government budgets, the elimination of public sector jobs has been the main drag on economic recovery.

That's right.   Private business can feel good about how well it's doing.   But we'd all be doing so much better, and the recovery would have been so much faster, if the economy had been stimulated even more by creating, not cutting, public sector jobs.    Public sector jobs doesn't mean bloated bureaucracies of redundant administrators;  we're talking about school teachers, first responders, child welfare workers, infrastructure construction workers.

Not only would more people be employed but their spending would even further improve the private sector business economy and create even more jobs.

That is the lesson to be learned.   But Republicans will go right on claiming that it is the other way around, in contradistinction to the facts.  

Ralph